An interventional study of Virtual Coach software and Activity monitor and website in Overweight, sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 20 Years to 55 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2009-12-04.
Sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
Hypothesis: Overweight subjects using a Virtual Coach will demonstrate improved adherence to an exercise regime.
This study is designed to examine the effect of a computer program called a "Virtual Coach" and find out if it helps people become more active. This program acts as a kind of a personal trainer and will give you feedback. All participants in the study will receive an activity monitor to wear during the study and a website to use to track activity. Half of the participants will also receive the virtual coach software. This software will have to be downloaded onto your computer, and we will ask that you check in with the coach using the software three times a week for 12 weeks. The group you will be placed in will be selected by chance.
3,670 studies on the registry are indexed under Overweight; 849 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 70 is close to the median of 73 across 3,175 interventional studies indexed under Overweight.
Browse Overweight studies →Massachusetts General Hospital is the lead sponsor of 2,536 studies on the registry; 446 are open to participants now.
Of its 214 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 161 (75%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
Intervention Group: The intervention being tested, the Virtual Coach, is an automated empathic computer agent which will run on patient's home computer and engage the patient in dialogues to deliver personalized feedback, education and coaching based on physiological data recorded by an activity monitor.
Other: Virtual Coach software
The control group will use an activity monitor and will have access to a website to monitor activity, but will not receive the Virtual Coach program.
Other: Activity monitor and website
The intervention being tested, the Virtual Coach, is an automated empathic computer agent which will run on patient's home computer and engage the patient in dialogues to deliver personalized feedback, education and coaching based on physiological data.
The control group will use an activity monitor and a website to track activity levels.
The primary outcome being measured is the level of activity monitored by the activity monitor. Control and Intervention subjects will be encouraged to wear the activity monitor on a daily basis for the 12 week course of the study.
Time frame: 12 weeks
Change in subject weight. Subjects will be weighed at their first study visit and their final visit.
Time frame: 12 weeks
Change in subject waist circumference. Subjects will be measured at their first study visit and their final visit
Time frame: 12 weeks
Subject rating on the working alliance inventory score
Time frame: 12 weeks, assessed at the end of the study
Changes in self-efficacy, quality of or readiness to change (as measured through surveys at the beginning and end of the study).
Time frame: 12 weeks
This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2009. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Massachusetts General Hospital